David Byrne and Mavis Staples have new music out now. Photos / Supplied
David Byrne and Mavis Staples have new music out now. Photos / Supplied
Reviews
Godspeed
by Mavis Staples
The 85-year-old Mavis Staples pours her voice into the gospel-leaning break-up ballad that was a highlight of enigmatic R&B cult star Frank Ocean’s 2016 Blonde album. It’s been covered before – including by Brit James Blake, who played and produced on the original Oceantrack – but Staples’ version has its own sweet wisdom. – Russell Baillie
Everybody Laughs
by David Byrne with the Ghost Train Orchestra
From the man who made normal seem weird. Announcing a new album Who is the Sky? (September 5) and a concert tour (Spark Arena, Auckland January 14, 2026), Byrne here taps into his own history around Talking Heads’ Little Creatures period of 40 years ago with a chipper song of inclusion which recalls the more pessimistic Road to Nowhere.
The Ghost Train Orchestra bring in a suggestion of South American music to this joyous, danceable singalong. Everybody sing: “Everybody lives and everybody dies ….” Fun that’s serious and serious fun. – Graham Reid
I Was On That Roof Once
by Ringlets
You have to be taken by a song which opens, “The Lord’s my German Shepherd (time for walkies) . . ..” which, cleverly, is also the title of this clean-cut Auckland band’s sophomore album due June 27. The song loses much of its momentum for a while after that, but this ambitious quartet pull together surreal imagery (“like the sea I am burning from the algae of tsunamis”) and jangly guitar pop which keeps you alert by changing direction with a sense of restrained tension. Gets better with repeated encounters. The video will sell it. Or fail to do so.
Sam Cullen, a singer-songwriter of Invercargill origins but Auckland base makes a nice addition to the classic genre, “Kiwi music clips filmed on the Desert Road”. It features Cullen driving a red beamer of the right ‘80s vintage for this heartfelt pop-rock anthem, one which he delivers with a convincing gravelly earnestness. One to be filed alongside Bruce Springsteen’s more synthesizer-adorned moments from the period, or the road trip soundtracks from the likes of the War on Drugs. – Russell Baillie
Robins’ Egg
by Iron and Wine featuring I’m With Her
A kind of tasteful folk implosion as Grammy-nominated Iron and Wine (Sam Beam) hooks up with the Grammy-winning, all-women trio of I’m With Her, a supergroup of Sara Watkins (a founder of the acclaimed Nickel Creek), Sarah Jarosz (Grammy nominated singer-songwriter) and Aoife O’Donovan (numerous Grammy and other award nominations).
Put them together and there’s a surprising result: we’re back to the folk-rock/singer-songwriter territory of the late 1960s and specifically the harmonies of Crosby, Stills and Nash. Tasteful. No album signalled but if you want more of this kind of mandolin’n’fiddle folk then check out I’m With Her’s recent Wild and Clear and Blue album. – Graham Reid
Reicha, Wind Quintet No.3, Op.100, III. Minuetto: Allegro scherzo
by Albert Schweitzer Quintet
Anton Reicha (1770-1836) was never in Beethoven’s league as a composer, but they were, for a while, close friends. The pair played in the same orchestra in Bonn and reunited in Vienna while Beethoven was preparing his third symphony, ‘Eroica’. If you listen closely to this charming scherzo from one of Reicha’s Op.100 Wind Quintets, you might hear echoes of Beethoven’s masterpiece in the horn part, which we’re sure must have been entirely coincidental. Ahem. – Richard Betts
